Murphy's Law Governs Storm

WR/LB Stevie Thomas got the
better of Barry Wagner in June, but he didn't in ArenaBowl XII. Wagner
amassed 213 all-purpose yards, intercepted a pass and scored on a 48-yard
missed field goal return. Photo by Chris Arnold.

TAMPA, Fla. - It was a disaster of record proportions. Never
in an ArenaBowl has a team been dominated so thoroughly. Never in Arena
Football history has a quarterback thrown six interceptions.

These negative numbers belong to the Tampa Bay Storm. The team that many were
waiting to name the best in league history. The team that was a 14-point
favorite heading into Sunday afternoon. The team that had the league's best
offense and defense in 1998. The team that had both the Defensive Player of
the Year (Johnnie
Harris) and the Coach of the Year (Tim Marcum).

The best team of 1998, and arguably, the best team of all time in Arena
Football League history, took a crashing dive on Sunday afternoon and turned
in perhaps the worst performance in ArenaBowl history. Orlando took advantage
of some questionable officials' calls, and the Storm's inability to rebound
from adversity, to pummel Tampa Bay 62-31 in front of an Ice Palace-Arenaball-
record 17,222 on Sunday afternoon.

"To put it real blunt, we got whupped," Marcum said. "[Orlando] turned it up;
played at a different level, and they got after us."

Orlando existed on a whole other plane from the Storm for most of the
afternoon. However, it didn't start off badly. Using two touchdown passes
from Willis to George LaFrance, the Storm
grabbed a 14-10 lead after the first quarter. When Harris intercepted a Pat
O'Hara pass to stop Orlando on their next drive, things appeared to be
business as usual. The crowd was rocking. Tampa Bay had the ball, with a
lead and possession of the ball after halftime in hand, and it seemed like the
moment of the game for the Storm to take control, just as they have on 14
occasions this spring and summer.

Sensing that it was time to go in for the kill, Willis went deep down the
middle of the field for LaFrance. The crowd rose to its feet, with most of
the fans in attendance ready to celebrate a third Storm touchdown. However,
Orlando DS Chris Barber outran LaFrance, and the ball hung a bit too high and
too far for the Storm receiver, and Barber picked it off and posted a 15-yard
return.

It was the beginning of the end for Tampa Bay.

That third touchdown that the crowd expected didn't come until there was just
3:12 left in the third quarter. And the score didn't give Tampa Bay a two-
score lead, rather, it pulled the Storm within 22 points. In the 23:31 that
elapsed from Barber's interception to Tampa Bay's third score, the following
disastrous circumstances took place:

Orlando scored on a missed field goal return by Wagner of 48 yards and on a
three-yard run of a fake field goal by Connell Maynor;

Predators FB/LB Rick Hamilton reeled off the longest run in ArenaBowl history;
a 36-yarder in the second quarter.

Those occurences conspired to turn the Storm into a passing shower. By the
final score of the run---the Wagner missed field goal return---Tampa Bay was a
befuddled club. Wagner's run came thanks to some shifty moves in Predator
territory and shoddy tackling on the Storm's side of the field, as he broke
through the attempted stops of Bjorn Nittmo, Terry Beauford and Lawrence Samuels. Wagner cut
through them as easily as a piping hot knife through butter, and the game was,
for all intents and purposes, over.

"A whole lot of credit's got to go to Orlando," Marcum said. "God-a-mighty,
that's a pretty good butt-kicking we got...We just didn't make the plays they
did. The run on short yardage, Barry's return, I could just go on and on and
on...I guess you just say, 'what might have been.'"

Aiding the Predators were a few questionable calls. First, on Hamilton's
36-yard touchdown run, Orlando OS Robert Gordon went low for Storm DS
Tracey Perkins,
undercutting him from below the knee. An illegal block below the waist seemed
to be the correct call, but Hamilton sauntered into the end zone with no
laundry left on the field.

The second questionable call came in the final minute of play in the second
quarter. Tampa Bay OL/DL Robert
"Pig" Goff hit O'Hara just before he threw, jarring the ball
loose. Storm lineman Willie
Wyatt fell on the ball and advanced to the Preds' one-yard-line.
Possession there would have given the Storm a chance to go into halftime with
the score tied 24-24. However, the officials called the play an incomplete
pass, even though O'Hara's arm was not moving forward as he was hit.

Finally, in the third quarter, Orlando scored on a safety when Webbie Burnett
tackled Stevie Thomas in the Storm's end zone. Thomas had recovered a muffed
kickoff by LaFrance. However, the play should not have been a safety; rather,
it should have been a touchback. LaFrance did not break out of the end zone
with the ball before he lost it; therefore, the ball never left the end zone.
According to league rules, a safety can only be scored on a kickoff return if
the ball is advanced out of the end zone and then goes back into the end zone.
This lapse of judgment cost the Storm not only two points, but a possession,
which Orlando converted into another touchdown.

Marcum, bound by league rules, was mum on the subject.

"No comment," he said when asked about the officials. "I can't do that. I
like my money; [I] don't want to get fined, but that's the way it goes.
That's football, and it's that way at every level."

The calls did help turn the game. However, they did not decide the game
unequivocally. Those plays put the Storm in an unfamiliar position, trying to
fight from behind. As early as the second quarter, when the game was still in
doubt, the Storm showed signs of panic. Willis kept firing deep passes. The
sure-handed Thomas dropped one on a mid-second-quarter possession. And the
blocking, normally sound, began to collapse as the Storm's hopes kept fading.

By the time the Storm finally gained some semblance of the team they had been
all season, they trailed by 30---and then, LaFrance scored to stop the
bleeding. For a brief moment, the Storm had a glimmer of hope, trailing by 22
and with the crowd finally back into the game. Then, Wagner struck the death
blow. He took Nittmo's kickoff---which landed short of the nets, eight yards
deep in the end zone and catchable---and sprinted 50 yards to the Storm's
eight-yard-line. Samuels forced a fumble at the end of the run, but Wagner
recovered. Although Orlando only managed a field goal on the possession, that
run stuck a final pin in the balloon that was the Storm fans' collective
psyche. The rest of the game was academic.

Many Storm fans had left by the end of the game, which saw Orlando run out the
clock mercifully on the battered, shattered Storm. Orlando celebrated as the
Storm bid a hasty retreat to the locker room. The players looked
dazed---almost like they didn't know what hit them, and still couldn't figure
it out. It was a game the dimensions of which this franchise has never
experienced. There have been losses, but none come close to this. In terms
of points, a few do---the 26-point losses at Albany in 1994 and against
Orlando last year, and a 27-point loss at Arizona in 1994 come to mind.

But this was the showcase game. The league's first on national broadcast
television. And the Storm was embarrassed in their own building. From this
kind of game, no honor can be salvaged, and the memories of a season of
success will forever be tinged with bitterness after this bloody Sunday.

"14-3 is disastrous when you don't win the last one," Marcum said.

What more can be said of a game that degenerated into one that we wanted to
hurry up and get overwith?

Thunderclaps...

Statistics Lie, and We Have Proof - The Storm outpassed
Orlando, 213 yards to 107...O'Hara finished just eight-of-25...Tampa Bay
averaged 6.3 yards per play to the Preds' 5.4...Tampa Bay recorded the game's
only sack...The Storm broke up 10 passes; the Preds, three.

Rewriting the Record Book - Hamilton rushed for an ArenaBowl
record 82 yards...Willis' six interceptions were a league record for
any game, regular or post-season...Wagner's 156 return yards
were the most in an ArenaBowl...Burnett's safety on Thomas was the first in a
title game...Wagner's 48-yard missed field goal return for a score was the
longest in ArenaBowl history...Gordon's eight-yard kickoff return in the
fourth quarter on an onside kick was the shortest in ArenaBowl
history...Barber's three interceptions tied an ArenaBowl record...Orlando's 62
points were th emost ever scored in a title game; the 31-point margin of
victory was also a record...The Preds' 127 rushing yards were the most in an
ArenaBowl and the most ever surrendered by the Storm...Orlando's 26 point
outburst is unmatched in ArenaBowl history...The teams combined for ArenaBowl
records in interceptions (seven), touchdowns (12), kickoff return yards (214),
most points in the second half (52), most combined return yards (316) and most
field goal attempts (four).